Fruit

Rating:
Summary: You've got to adore Peter
Review: Fruit is a funny, definitively Canadian novel with distinct, understandable characters, despite their limited time on the pages.

Rating:
Summary: (3.5) The teenage trauma of body image
Review: Peter Paddington is not an ordinary adolescent, concerned about girlfriends and a few facial blemishes or whether to lose a pound or two. No, in Peter's little corner of Sarnia, Canada, he is worried about a boyfriend and fifty pounds (or more) and the fact that part of his anatomy has begun speaking to him (always giving bad advice, at that). Trapped in his corpulent body, when not binding his developing (and talking) chest with masking tape or examining the weird places where body hair has suddenly sprouted, Peter agonizes over ever having the courage to go on a diet and become "the new and improved Peter Paddington".

Surrounded by an enabling, if well-meaning family, Peter's cause is hampered by an emotionally inept father and two older sisters, who heap scorn upon their younger brother. Unfortunately, each time Peter works up the determination to start a diet, he is sabotaged by the well-meaning efforts of a mother who whisper/screams and turns a blind eye to her son's problems. Every day filled with self-loathing, deprecation and humiliation, compensation is in order, hence Peter's imaginative "Bedtime Movies", little vignettes he imagines to lull himself to sleep.

Peter's school has its own social hierarchy, specific groups like the Athlete Group, the Short group, the Geek group, the Goody-Goody Group, the Indian Group and the Banger Group. Peter is intimidated by most of these categories, especially the Banger group, who consider him an object for their amusement. Viewed metaphorically, Peter has a surplus of social adjustment issues.

As he bumbles into his fourteenth year, Peter's overactive imagination comes in handy for strategizing a life plan, his greatest challenge hovering on the horizon. His incipient, life-altering sexual orientation at issue, this kid is nowhere near ready to be counted out; Peter Paddington is headed for a spectacular coming out. Luan Gaines/2004

Rating:
Summary: Peter, Peter, Peter
Review: This book was enjoyable. The characters were very real to life. Funny !!